Space Task Group creates standards for space

The mission that would send Alan Shepard, America's first man into space, was only a year-and-a-half away when, on Jan. 1, 1960, NASA brought the Space Task Group under its auspices.

"The Space Task Group was a working group of engineers based at Langley Research Center," the website llanddaniel.co.uk. Created in 1958, members were "tasked with superintending America's manned space-flight program."

"The possibility of manned spaceflight was one of several programs that the new space agency (NASA) began to address in 1958," said history.nasa.gov. "The Space Task Group had a huge task ahead."

Robert Gilruth, who would become director of the Manned Spacecraft Center-cum-Johnson Space Center, headed the STG. According to his obituary at nasa.gov, members were instrumental in creating "all the basic principles of Project Mercury," including "the conical, blunt-ended capsule, qualifications for astronauts, launch criteria and mission operation procedures."

"In 1958, under the leadership of Robert R. Gilruth, the Space Task Group had been given the responsibility of placing a man in orbit around the Earth. Those few young men who assumed this task did not have any previous experience on which to rely," llanddaniel.co.uk said. "The operational concepts that were developed by this cadre on Mercury were improved as experience was gained on each flight.

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As the Operations Team assumed the responsibility for flying Gemini, the concepts were further developed, expanded and improved."

Initially, just 35 men and women made up the STG, said NASA's 1963 publication, "Project Mercury: A Chronology." Llanddaniel.co.uk said the roster included "eight secretaries and 'computers' (the term for women who ran calculations on mechanical adding machines)."

Four years later, 21 of the original 35 STG members, including Gilruth, Dr. Maxime Faget, and Christopher Kraft, Jr., had become "members of the Manned Spacecraft Center, the successor of the Space Task Group," said "Project Mercury: A Chronology."

Faget is credited with designing the Mercury capsule. Even earlier, in April 1958, he helped "conceive the idea of using a contour couch to withstand the high g-loads" during launch and re-entry, "Project Mercury: A Chronology," said. The next month, Langley's shops fabricated "test-model contour couches," which were soon "proved feasible on July 30."

Kraft went on to become the "first human space mission flight director," a NASA press release stated, and in 1972 the agency named him the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

As the STG took on more duties and responsibilities, the staff swelled. In 1959, 32 engineers joined, llanddaniel.co.uk said. When NASA assumed control in January 1961, "Project Mercury: A Chronology" said "the personnel strength" was 667. The Space Task Group was not an assemblage of engineers content to call themselves a Think Tank, and debate concepts solely at conference tables. "Project Mercury: A Chronology," detailed their proactive participation. It began virtually immediately after inception. On Oct. 7 and 8, 1958, members who were "involved in the study of re-entry methods visited the Air Force Wright Air Development Center in Dayton, Ohio, for the purpose of preparing (animal) test specimens." They next went to the Chicago Midway Laboratories "to investigate various ablation methods of reentry."

On Nov. 24, 1958, the STG "placed an order for one Atlas launch vehicle with the Air Force Missile Division É as part of a preliminary research program leading to manned space flight."

Two days later, Group personnel "presented a proposed program for Langley Research Center support in the Little Joe phase of Project Mercury." Little Joe had several purposes. Among them, said "Project Mercury: A Chronology," was building "a solid-fuel launch vehicle design(ed) for the research and development phase of a manned satellite vehicle project"; "to propel a full-scale, full-weight developmental version of the manned spacecraft to some of the flight conditions that would be encountered"; and, "to perfect the escape maneuver in the event of an aborted mission."

The year hadn't even ended when, in December 1958, the STG's "technical assessment teams completed the evaluation of industry proposals for design and construction of a manned spacecraft and forwarded their findings to the Source Selection Board" at NASA. As the new decade arrived and the Cold War-era Space Race heated up, "managing the huge lunar-landing program É posed unprecedented management challenges," said "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space/Engineer of War" (Knopf/2008). NASA's budget would "quintuple É to over $5 billion per year in the mid-1960s." The growing program needed room to grow. "STG obviously was going to expand massively and go somewhere." James Webb, NASA's second administrator (1961-1968), announced "that that 'somewhere' would be a cow pasture outside Houston, an obeisance to the power of Vice President (Lyndon) Johnson and powerful Texas congressmen who sat on appropriations committees. STG became the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC, renamed Johnson Space Center after the ex-president's death in 1973)."

Webb made the announcement on Sept. 19, 1961. The next day, "Gilruth and other officials of the Space Task Group surveyed the Houston, Texas, area to seek temporary operational quarters while the permanent installation was being constructed," said "Project Mercury: A Chronology." "The new NASA center for manned space flight would be constructed upon a 1,000-acre site donated by Rice University."

There was, according to "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space/Engineer of War," a second, unrelated Space Task Group, which Vice President Spiro Agnew appointed to "examine NASA's post-Apollo future." A primary goal was a manned flight to Mars.Michael Shinabery is an education specialist and humanities scholar with the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Email him at michael.shinabery@state.nm.us